Successes and Challenges

Successes

At the start of this internship, I was unfamiliar with computational research and I had to quickly understand how various programs worked to be able to make mutations of my proteins of interest and analyze them. I learned how to use a program called PyMol to create mutations of the proteins we are studying to understand how the structure affects the functions of the protein in our bodies. It was frustrating to not know how to use this application and I had to overcome technological challenges. Now, I feel feel more comfortable exploring new and different programs to further my research and I understand how much our research benefits from online resources. 

Another success that I have has been my independence in carrying out experimental procedures that I learned in the fall. I have had to go through a series of doing the same experiments, but I have normally done it with others in the lab. I am now working on an experiment by myself and I don't feel as nervous during the steps. I also understand the purpose of each step better. This is a smaller success, but I have been able to apply this confidence in my skills to my laboratory classes. It contributes to my career because I want to do laboratory work in the future. 

Challenges

The most difficult part of this experience is being able to transfer the skills that I have learned in the lab classes to this lab. In class, most of the experiment prep has already been done by TAs, whereas we prepare everything ourselves from scratch. I have learned to combat this challenge by asking my mentor to briefly reexplain concepts and help me relate what we're doing to the overall research goal. This has helped me spark my memory of skills I learned and helps me to understand how it applies to the research. Learning to prep has allowed me to better understand and appreciate the experimental process. 

An additional challenge has been learning adaptability, or problem-solving. I am a very structured person and it can be frustrating when something is not exactly going the way I would like it to. Learning to adjust the procedure and explore alternative routes for the experiment is something that I am still learning. A small example of this was during a mini prep procedure, which is an experiment used to isolate DNA from bacteria. Previously, I have only had to deal with ~10 samples, so I was not used to handling approximately 50 individual samples. I had to carefully think through the best way to get through each step as efficiently as possible by myself. Though nothing had gone wrong, the experiment required me to mentally adapt to what I was doing. My team has been helpful in explaining to me why something may not have worked the way we want, and they have a quick fix that helps me get to an end result. Adaptability is crucial in science and I hope to build more on this skill throughout the rest of the semester.